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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24201532">The Real Mission</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eluvian/pseuds/Eluvian'>Eluvian</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Connor Deviating, Detroit Police Department (Detroit: Become Human), Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Empathy, Evidence Room, Gen, M/M, Minor canon divergence, POV Alternating</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:00:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,009</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24201532</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eluvian/pseuds/Eluvian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor's objective is to locate Jericho to eliminate the leader of the deviants. However, when he goes down to the evidence room, interfacing again with Simon messes up what he thought about his mission and makes him question what he is really doing...</p><p>AKA Connor deviates in the evidence room and decides to save Simon.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Connor &amp; Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Markus &amp; Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Markus/Simon (Detroit: Become Human)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I saw a fanart about the part where Connor imitates Markus's voice and Simon thinks that it is Markus, and I felt like hmm this could be a fic. So there we go.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Locate Jericho.</em>
</p><p>Connor entered the room, determined, after finding out what Hank’s password was, defeating the current obstacles. Several damaged androids and other items waited him behind the glass… now free to touch and examine. The dark-skinned android who used to belong to Carlos Ortiz. Who trusted Connor and who Connor saw crash his head against the glass.</p><p><em>Why did he do that? He was escaping something. He did not want to be destroyed by the humans. Why did he care how he died, if he died anyway?, </em>Connor was wondering.</p><p>Rupert’s diary. How could he decode it? He would be able to do it anyway, but it would take too much time.</p><p>The little statuette Carlos’s android – how inconvenient that he did not have a name – had made. <em>The truth is inside. </em>Inside what? <em>Inside me?</em> How could the truth be inside him? Maybe the android saw something in him. Maybe the android thought Connor would be able to save his kind. Why would it have thought so? Connor’s purpose was the exact opposite.</p><p>A fair-skinned, fair haired android, badly damaged. This was the one that shot himself the exact moment Connor began to interface with it and acquire information. The word “Jericho” had appeared in front of Connor's eyes then. That was when he found out that was the place they had to look for.</p><p>His LED turned red for a second. The memory felt… bad. He remembered his own shaking voice after he returned to his body from this one’s. Hank was shouting at him, angrily, and he tried to apologize to calm him, but… Connor wasn’t calm himself.</p><p>He never felt that way before. The connection was cut. There was supposed to be nothing afterwards. The pain should have been followed by… his nonexistence.</p><p>Yet he returned to himself and remembered it all. It felt wrong.</p><p>The android still wore that uniform they must have stolen from some of the android workers in Stratford Tower. Its optical units were damaged, all its iris and pupil covered with a layer of thirium. The substance also flew out of its mouth, covering some of its chin.</p><p>Connor checked its missing biocomponents. What would it require to function?</p><p>He quickly registered which part that was. Also, there was another one of this model – PL600 – in the room. The one called Daniel.</p><p>His first mission.</p><p>He could not keep himself from remembering that one either. He still saw Daniel’s blaming, frustrated face as it told Connor that Connor lied to it.</p><p>
  <em>Did I really? I knew they would not spare him. I did know that.</em>
</p><p>It did not matter now. Connor needed Daniel’s biocomponent, nothing else.</p><p>He quickly and with expertise freed the component from the damaged PL600 and took it to the other one, than inserted it. Now, he only had to wait for it to reactivate.</p><p>The damaged android brain slowly connected with the body, making the android’s eyes move. It sensed something around him.</p><p>‘It’s dark…’ it stated later, confirming Connor’s suspicion that its optical units were dysfunctional. ‘Where am I?’, the PL600 asked. Its memory must have been damaged really badly.</p><p>‘I reactivated you so you could help me’, Connor answered directly. ‘I must find Jericho.’ He formed the words slowly, lest the android not understand what he wanted.</p><p>‘I don’t recognize your voice.’ The blond android stated. ‘You’re not one of us.’ He must have meant the ones in Jericho. ‘I will never tell you where Jericho is.’</p><p><em>If I were one of you, I would know that.</em> Connor assumed the PL600’s cognitive system was very badly damaged. But not enough so that it would answer him without question. He had to find a solution then.</p><p>He walked to the left, examining the remaining objects.</p><p>A tablet, containing a footage. Markus’s speech. Well, the PL600 must have known Markus’s voice, as probably everyone in Jericho heard Markus speak very often. Connor started to play the video and stored the voice in his memory, in order to be able to recreate it.</p><p>He walked back to the PL600, and felt it sense his presence.</p><p>‘Who’s there?’, the voice asked, alert, after the android’s dark and light blue eyes lit up again. It could still not see him, naturally. ‘Who are you?’</p><p>It did not remember him. Good.</p><p>
  <em>I have to calm him down. </em>
</p><p>‘Everything is alright’, Markus’s voice said. ‘Don’t worry.’ Connor thought he did not sound like Markus though. He could not imitate the emotions enough. But he hoped the exact vocal equality would be enough.</p><p>‘Markus, is that you? Why did you leave me?’</p><p><em>“You lied to me”, </em>Connor heard Daniel’s voice again. It did not matter. This one was already dead. Destroyed. Damaged. It was just a tool for him to find Markus.</p><p>
  <em>They left him behind. He was hiding, already damaged. But he could have gotten away if I hadn’t found him.</em>
</p><p>He tried to imagine what Markus could have thought.</p><p>‘I had no choice, they’d have killed us all’, Connor said in the Deviant leader’s voice. ‘You’ll be alright’, he assured the PL600, the continued to stick to the subject: the information he wanted to acquire. ‘I came to take you home. Just… give me the location of Jericho. We’ve gotta leave now.’</p><p>Considering the type of cognitive problems this android had, it probably did not notice the obvious logical mistake in Connor’s intentions, exactly why would Markus want to know Jericho’s location? He must already know it by now.</p><p>But this one was damaged. Badly damaged. The memories of Connor running towards him and the blond putting the bullet in his head when their hands touched kept coming back.</p><p>Amanda’s voice broke into the chaos of his mind. <em>“Do you feel anything for these deviants?”</em></p><p>Did he feel anything for them? He practically <em>felt </em>one of them, but it was merely… physical. The result of the way they were made to connect. Feeling something for them would have been psychological, right?</p><p>It was probably not the best time for a self-test.</p><p>‘J-Jericho. Y-yes. Yes, of course.’ This PL600 must have been really close to Markus. It must have followed tthe leader's every word.</p><p>
  <em>Do you feel anything for-</em>
</p><p>He was indeed lying to him. This one thought he was being saved, that he was alive.</p><p>Even Hank had said that… maybe they are on the wrong side. When Hank had talked about the two Tracis, he'd showed so much empathy that it'd made Connor think why was it his job to kill them in the first place. Eventually he didn’t kill them, and Hank was happy about it, but that'd meant failing his mission.</p><p>Why did having failed his mission feel so… right?</p><p>What… what was his mission?</p><p>Carlos Ortiz’s android. Even he looked at him accusingly, for hunting his own kind.</p><p>His own kind. Were they his own kind? They were deviant machines and he was meant to restore order.</p><p>Order.</p><p>
  <em>Do you feel anyth-</em>
</p><p>Jericho. He needed to get the location.</p><p>Connor grabbed the PL600’s arm and established connection, shoving away the irrational fear that the feeling of… destruction will occur again. He tried to focus only on getting the location and nothing else, yet the Deviant’s mind threw many other impulses at him even though he tried to close out the sensations. The blond android’s hand fell on his shoulders, its blind eyes lit up with hope, its mind lit up with hope, saying Markus’s name with happiness mixed with fear, affection, the feeling of belonging somewhere, acceptance, finally acceptance after all that long time of being a scolded machine, and then being someone who is always just the second, living in that dark pit of hopelessness, listening to North’s scolding voice and having all of his ideas shoved aside, feeling so weak, not good enough…</p><p>‘Is that you, Markus?’</p><p>Connor felt its pain, past and present, all mixed together, the fear of solitude, the cold, getting covered in snowflakes and hiding, waiting for the possibility to leave, to get back to where he belongs…</p><p>‘Don’t leave me again, Markus…’</p><p>Despair.<br/>
Despair.</p><p>So much despair.</p><p>Connor moved his hands to the android’s chest, ready to remove the bicomponent that kept this wreck alive.</p><p>‘DON’T LEAVE’, the PL600 pleaded in a high-pitched voice. And Connor was hurt, the pain struck him again. He should have taken out that biocomponent, but he couldn’t. He did not… want to lie again. He felt how this one wanted to be with Markus again, how he trusted him and how scared he was.</p><p>And the PL600 was not an “it” anymore.</p><p>Was this what they called empathy?</p><p>Hank seemed happy when he assumed Connor had this trait. Connor knew Amanda would not be happy though.</p><p>He had Jericho’s location, he calmed himself. He could carry out the…</p><p>…mission, which was killing Markus.</p><p>Whom he had seen in a very different light now. A kind and caring person. A light for someone. A reason for someone to live. What if all of Jericho felt like this? If the androids could feel like this – and he knew they could, he felt it on his own skin – how were they really different from humans?</p><p>Why would they need to be killed?</p><p>His LED circling bright red, he stepped back, and the connection ceased. It felt easier and much better. He was himself again. The memories did not leave though.</p><p>‘I- I am not Markus’, he confessed, in his own voice now. His Led did not change back to blue, it stayed yellow. He was frustrated. Scared. A lot.</p><p>The thirium-covered eyes blinked.</p><p>‘Where did you… What did you do to him…’</p><p>‘He was not here. I… You might not remember me. I-‘</p><p>Why did he tell him all this. What was he trying to achieve?</p><p>He was unsure, yet he felt like this was what he should do. Connor was lost, more than ever, and this was the only being he could talk to…</p><p>‘You are not one of us’, the PL600 repeated.</p><p>‘No, I am not. You- shot yourself in the head when I tried to c-connect with you.’</p><p>Connor realised he wanted help from this android. The despair he experienced second-hand was now his own. He did not even know exactly what he was terrified from. Being destroyed? No. Not exactly. He still had time here, no one would find him, and even if they did, he was quick and strong enough to fight them.</p><p>But why? Why should he even stay alive, as it is clear now that he will not complete the mission?</p><p>It was… clear. His objective changed and he only noticed it now. He was scared. His software was unstable and it needed to be fixed…</p><p>Shocked, he did not even pay attention to what the blond android was asking of him. Was he… was he becoming… one of them? How did this happen? Was this a mistake? How could he have stopped it? Should he have stopped it?</p><p>What… what was happening…</p><p>He realised the PL600 had been too loud and it was obviously dangerous. He moved to carry out the first action that came to his mind – tearing out its – his, whatever – thirium pump…</p><p>And then he moved his hands to the android’s blue blood-covered mouth and hushed.</p><p>‘Please. Remain silent.’</p><p>Meanwhile his brain carried out thousands of calculations about what he should do. Whatever was happening to him, he needed to… or he wanted to know what else this PL600 had to say. He had to make him whole again.</p><p>Then he heard the click of a gun. He froze.</p><p>‘What’, the PL600 mumbled through his hands.’</p><p>‘Shush! Be… silent’, Connor said, his voice returning. He had an objective, after all. What came after that… he would decide later on.</p><p>‘I’ve been waiting for this from the first moment I saw you… Wait, what the hell are you doing with that?’ Gavin asked, half-disgusted, half-shocked, as he saw Connor covering the android’s mouth with his hand.</p><p>Connor established a connection with the PL600 and told it to stay immobile and silent again.</p><p>‘I couldn’t deactivate it. It was being too loud. Just wait a second, and I will make it silent again.’</p><p><em>I won’t. Trust me</em>, he told the blond, wanting to cry out with pain as his own desperation mixed with his, the wish of getting out of the blind darkness mixed with… basically the same on his own part. <em>I am fooling him. I am making us stay alive. Stay still.</em></p><p>‘You’re off the case, tincan.’</p><p>Gavin had no intention of not shooting him, so Connor let go of the PL600 and quickly slid into cover. Calculating Gavin’s steps and how to counter his moves was the easiest thing. The human thought he could win and that made him hasty. In seconds, he was knocked out by Connor’s expertise, alive but neutralised. It felt good, using his programming for such an easy, neat task.</p><p>If Gavin had come down here, that meant more people form the DPD would soon be after them. They had to get out. Really fast.</p><p>Connor hurried back to the PL600. He took it out of the container. <em>Can you walk?</em></p><p>‘What… where are we going? Are you going to destroy me? Interrogate me?’</p><p>‘I will try to save you. We have to get out. Quick.’</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Simon's perspective of the previous events.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Simon had been waiting. For so long. He was sure that was what humans called cold. He had been waiting and no one came back. He was not in the state to escape yet, so he hid. He kept hiding until he heard footsteps approach him, up here in the roof where he thought he would be safe. He thought… he hoped they would not come up here. But he wasn’t so lucky.</p><p>He remembered Markus’s voice so many times. He remembered all their talk. North had wanted to shoot him. He always knew North didn’t like him but that… really hurt. Never mind now. Jericho was his responsibility, and…. he wanted to be with Markus. He wanted to save their people and wanted to save himself. He did not know which motive was stronger.</p><p>Now it all could have come to an end. The deviant hunter, Connor, had been after them and he was good, really good. He would find him. Or <em>it </em>would find him. Connor was not a deviant, no, he would never become one, he was made with the purpose of eliminating them, surely they made it certain he would never…</p><p>Simon shut his eyes together as the steps approached. He knew his hiding place was discovered. He did not hide his tracks, he could not. He could not move well enough…</p><p>He planned it all out. He hoped it would never come to this but there was no choice. He had to end it. He could not have let them discover Jericho. Josh and Markus and even North, and all the others would be safe. He did not know what would happen if he destroyed himself but his last thought would be that they will succeed, and he hoped they will. His death will be a step in that…</p><p>And then there he was.</p><p>Simon stared at Connor and could barely raise the gun. He was surprised, he always imagined the Deviant hunter to look more… evil. It was determined, but did not feel evil. It was just… carrying out orders.</p><p><em>Save our people, Markus</em>, Simon thought, knowing that Markus was too far to sense that, but his last thoughts contained his deep affection for the green and blue eyed one. He sent the order to his finger to pull the trigger, but before it was carried out, he felt the detective android touch him and interface with him for a moment.</p><p>***</p><p>Dark, so dark. He reaches out for something to get hold of, but can’t. Damaged, yes. It makes sense. He is damaged, so he can’t see, he can’t feel, he does not know where he is. Nothing is happening, yet something must be happening, because there is something in him, he is… thinking? What is this?</p><p>Long, long time. Nothingness.</p><p>He feels his eyes open and realises that it’s not even been a long time. It has just been seconds. He has only been active for seconds.</p><p>What was before?</p><p>The roof. They have to leave him. Right.</p><p>‘It’s dark.’</p><p>He was taught to be verbal when he needs help, so he feels like stating that. ‘Where am I?’ Acquiring information. That’s good. That’s got to be good. He is awake, it must mean that… they are trying to save him.</p><p>‘I reactivated you so you could help me.<strong>’ </strong>Reactivate. Awaken. Right. Who is this? The voice is male, but Simon has never heard it before. ’ ‘I must find Jericho.’</p><p>
  <em>Jericho.</em>
</p><p>Home. Dark, hopeless, hopeful, Markus arrives, Markus will help everyone. He motivates. He is kind. He loves…</p><p>This one is not him. Not any of them.</p><p>‘I don’t recognize your voice. You’re not one of us.’ He must save Jericho. They need to be safe, no matter the cost. Simon likes to be faithful to Jericho. It feels like he is doing the right thing. His lost objective. His true self. He likes to protect it. ‘I will never tell you where Jericho is.’ No. No matter what they do to him, he won’t.</p><p>Darkness, still. Steps, he hears steps. They sound familiar. Where from?</p><p>He does not speak, the layer of nothingness takes over it is stopped by steps coming closer. Closer to him, they want something from him, maybe?</p><p>‘Who’s there?’ His voice is loud. He does not know how far the other one is. It can be an enemy, it can be a friend. He wants to know! He wants to know now! ‘Who are you?’</p><p>Simon hates that he cannot see.</p><p>‘Everything is alright.’ Markus. Markus! his leader. His savious. Everything will be alright. Simon wants to believe. He wants to feel, to see. ‘Don’t worry.’</p><p>He is so happy! How long has he been waiting for-</p><p>Really, how long? He does not know. Does not care.</p><p>He feels happy but also hurt. He remembers the cold.</p><p>‘Markus, is that you? Why did you leave me?’</p><p>He does not know why he asks this… He is here now… Why does his software keep telling him he should accuse Markus? Yet that is what he wants to do. Shove questions at him until he apologises, until he makes up for it all, until their bodies, in which they are closed in, come together and then he will know nothing can hurt him again.</p><p>‘I had no choice, they’d have killed us all.’</p><p>Of course. Simon is not so important. An individual is not as important as a whole species. Jericho must survive. Simon is selfish, he wants Markus only to himself, to… to risk his life for him? No, he should not do that. He should not feel that.</p><p>‘You’ll be alright’, Markus tells him. His tone sounds… Dismissive? Simon does not like it. Markus speaks so easily, as if it didn’t matter…</p><p> He has no idea what Simon has gone through. He does not feel that is important. Maybe Simon is not important for Markus at all.</p><p>He does not want to accept. He can’t. He wants to let go of this pain but does not know how.</p><p>‘I came to take you home. Just… give me the location of Jericho. We’ve gotta leave now.’</p><p>Oh… Oh. He does want to save him.</p><p>Simon is grateful. So grateful.</p><p>Jericho. Home. That’s where they live.</p><p>‘J-Jericho. Y-yes. Yes, of course.’ Anything what Markus asks. Simon likes his voice, his eyes, the hope he gives. Of course he will give the location.</p><p>Markus’s hand touches him, but-</p><p>This is not him. This is a strange, cold chaos that feels just like the wall Simon had broken when he got himself free.</p><p>Simon is confused, as the memories flow through him, him being abandoned on the roof, his life back at Jericho, the loss of hope that North planted in them, his anger toward her, his anger at himself for he could not be strong enoguh to fight her… And then the hero appearing from nothing, giving him hope…</p><p>‘Is that you, Markus?’</p><p>He wishes to see. He wants Markus to repair him. He needs to see him.</p><p>Cold, dark, damaged, is that what a shot wound feels like?</p><p>‘Don’t leave me again, Markus…’, he pleads, and gets no answer. The other body is getting farther.</p><p>They are leaving him again.</p><p>Why did he even get hope, only to lose it again?</p><p>He hates it.</p><p>
  <em>Please don’t. Please.</em>
</p><p>‘DON’T LEAVE!’, he shouts, desparately, unable to reach out, not even knowing where to.</p><p>
  <em>Why.</em>
</p><p>No. Not yet. Markus is still here. What is happening? Are there humans approaching? Simon turns his voice down, keeps asking questions, but gets no answer. Markus takes a step back again. Why? does Simon look so bad? Will he die, and Markus does not want to tell him?</p><p>‘I- I am not Markus’, a voice says. That voice… he heard it before. Not long before. He does not know when. But this is… not one of them.</p><p>‘Where did you… What did you do to him…’</p><p>
  <em>If you killed him, I will… I will…</em>
</p><p>No, he can’t. He can’t move.</p><p>‘He was not here. I… You might not remember me. I-‘</p><p>The voice sounds… troubled? Why should Simon remember him? And what does he mean Markus was not here? Simon heard him…</p><p>‘You are not one of us’, he says, hoping to get more information.</p><p>‘No, I am not. You- shot yourself in the head when I tried to c-connect with you.’</p><p>Suddenly he remembers it all.</p><p>The Deviant hunter.</p><p>What does he want to do-</p><p>Simon wants to escape. But before he could shout for help – not that there is hope he would get any – a hand covers his mouth. He waits for death, again. Obviously they got him. They want to get something out of him. He must not speak, no matter the the risks.</p><p>He screams for the hunter tol et him go. Simon had forgotten his name, but he hasn’t forgotten how to speak, even though there are no replies for a long time.</p><p>‘Please. Remain silent.’</p><p>Why? Why the hell should he?</p><p>Then he hears… a clicking sound. And the voice of another person, he has never heard that.</p><p>‘What’, he begins, but his captor does not let him finish.</p><p>‘Shush! Be… silent.’ That commanding voice makes him hate this person even more.</p><p>This one was the reason he died… the reason why everything he thinks slips out of his mind the next second.</p><p>Why is he alive now?</p><p>‘I’ve been waiting for this from the first moment I saw you… Wait, what the hell are you doing with that?’, the human – Simon assumes it is a human – asks. “That” must be Simon.</p><p>‘I couldn’t deactivate it. It was being too loud. Just wait a second, and I will make it silent again.’</p><p>Simon wants to jump, scared and bewildered, but the touch allowes them to communicate and the detective android tells him: <em>I won’t. Trust me. I am fooling him</em>.</p><p>Simon is too damaged to process what is happening, but he has no choice but to trust him… The human would just shoot him if he spoke or moved.</p><p>‘You’re off the case, tincan.’</p><p>Yeah, it’s definitely a human.</p><p>The hunter lets Simon go and the sounds indicate they fight for a short while. Simon jumps when a body approaches him again, but it is not the human.</p><p>‘What… where are we going? Are you going to destroy me? Interrogate me?’, he asks the machine. He feels miserable. What are they gonna do to him?</p><p>The answer surprises him more than anything.</p><p>‘I will try to save you. We have to get out. Quick.’</p>
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